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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is a serious film about morality and social injustice and perhaps not surprisingly it flopped at the American box office in the 1960's. Set in the Pennsylvanian coalfields of the 1870's it revolves around two characters:Jack Kehoe, the leader of the Molly Maguires,a secret society dedicated to violently fighting the enormous exploitation that was the lot of the miners working in the coalfield; and James McParlan,who as the undercover agent for the Pinkerton Detective agency is prepared to shed all common notions of human feeling and loyalty in pursuit of a "higher" justice and more obviously his own American Dream
There is a strong cast including Frank Finlay and Samantha Eggar giving support to the two leading performances of Sean Connery and Richard Harris who is particularly successful at conveying some of the inner conflicts within his character's situation.
However the real quality of the film lies in other directions.It deserves its oscar nomination for art direction and the authenticity of the set placed in the almost abandoned Pennsylvania town of Ecksly is amazing.The pace of the film is more European than Hollywood and this is particularly evident in the strangely beautiful opening which with its well crafted choice of shots and sequences establishes the background of the drama.
You may choose to side with the underdog refusing to be buried by the industrial machine or you may ultimately judge the Molly Maguires to to be violent thugs and murderers.However, the final shot of the film with the gallows rehearsal as McParlan finally turns his back on all that he has done leaves little doubt that the inner life of this man will have to pay a cost for the deaths he has brought about.
I too enjoyed Henry Mancini's unobtrusive but effective score.
This is an undervalued film that is at last like that other great flop, "Heaven's Gate",getting some of the attention it deserves.Indeed the beautifully filmed rugby match between the Welsh and Irish miners performs a similar function to the skating in "Heaven's Gate", reflecting something of the spirit and ethos of an immigrant community.Well worth a viewing. There is much to enjoy.
There is a strong cast including Frank Finlay and Samantha Eggar giving support to the two leading performances of Sean Connery and Richard Harris who is particularly successful at conveying some of the inner conflicts within his character's situation.
However the real quality of the film lies in other directions.It deserves its oscar nomination for art direction and the authenticity of the set placed in the almost abandoned Pennsylvania town of Ecksly is amazing.The pace of the film is more European than Hollywood and this is particularly evident in the strangely beautiful opening which with its well crafted choice of shots and sequences establishes the background of the drama.
You may choose to side with the underdog refusing to be buried by the industrial machine or you may ultimately judge the Molly Maguires to to be violent thugs and murderers.However, the final shot of the film with the gallows rehearsal as McParlan finally turns his back on all that he has done leaves little doubt that the inner life of this man will have to pay a cost for the deaths he has brought about.
I too enjoyed Henry Mancini's unobtrusive but effective score.
This is an undervalued film that is at last like that other great flop, "Heaven's Gate",getting some of the attention it deserves.Indeed the beautifully filmed rugby match between the Welsh and Irish miners performs a similar function to the skating in "Heaven's Gate", reflecting something of the spirit and ethos of an immigrant community.Well worth a viewing. There is much to enjoy.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The movie was missed by us in 1970 and I only sought after it when I fell in love with the music.The main theme is so beautiful and haunting that I just had to see the Movie.
The Opening is superb as the mine comes to life,and the theme is used to it's best. You want to watch the story now.The other music themes are heard later as the Irish weave their way into your heart.The "Pennywhistle Jig" comes along just when needed to lighten the scene.
Connery is as always brilliant even if he is a Scot.Harris does a great job as the spy.All the cast and the crew took us to Pennyslvania and made us feel desperatley sorry for all the Irish families exploited in the 1860s.The children were a sorry tale,and the climate was well drafted.
I will watch this one again and enjoy the Mancini background to a trully sad tale,punctuated by tender and comical human encounters. They don't make these movies any more.
The Opening is superb as the mine comes to life,and the theme is used to it's best. You want to watch the story now.The other music themes are heard later as the Irish weave their way into your heart.The "Pennywhistle Jig" comes along just when needed to lighten the scene.
Connery is as always brilliant even if he is a Scot.Harris does a great job as the spy.All the cast and the crew took us to Pennyslvania and made us feel desperatley sorry for all the Irish families exploited in the 1860s.The children were a sorry tale,and the climate was well drafted.
I will watch this one again and enjoy the Mancini background to a trully sad tale,punctuated by tender and comical human encounters. They don't make these movies any more.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
The Molly Maguires is the kind of film that would simply never be made today: a major studio picture about social injustice and betrayal in the coalfields of Pennsylvania in the 1876 that became one of the most colossal box-office flops of all time (despite a massive budget and the presence of Sean Connery, it actually grossed even less than John Sayles' low-budget Matewan). Set in the aftermath of a failed strike where a group of miners are trying to win what they lost with dynamite as their powerlessness turns into violent action, it's a surprisingly bitter film for a studio picture, even in the 1970s. Screenwriter Walter Bernstein was blacklisted, and the experience clearly fuels much of the script. There's no doubting that Richard Harris' infiltrator is damned. Certainly the end, where absolution is denied, recalls Abraham Polonsky's comment that he got through being blacklisted "because I knew for me one day it would end. For those who named names, it will never end."
But there's more to his script than mere words: huge sections of the film are played without dialogue - it's 15 minutes before a single word is spoken and 40 before Sean Connery speaks despite his background presence quietly dominating much of the proceedings. James Wong Howe's astounding scope photography is a major asset, quietly confident as it paints with light a real portrait of a time and place, conveying a sense of the way the pits worked in the beautifully timed establishing shots. There's real intelligence in the framing of the film, whether turning a door frame into an impromptu confessional booth or, in the haunting final shot, turning a rehearsal for one man's execution into another man's silent purgatory. Henry Mancini's score, along with The White Dawn his most beautiful and atypical, is another major plus in a seriously undervalued film.
No extras on Paramount's DVD - a shame, since there was a short featurette about the making of the film, but this doesn't even include the trailer - but a decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer.
But there's more to his script than mere words: huge sections of the film are played without dialogue - it's 15 minutes before a single word is spoken and 40 before Sean Connery speaks despite his background presence quietly dominating much of the proceedings. James Wong Howe's astounding scope photography is a major asset, quietly confident as it paints with light a real portrait of a time and place, conveying a sense of the way the pits worked in the beautifully timed establishing shots. There's real intelligence in the framing of the film, whether turning a door frame into an impromptu confessional booth or, in the haunting final shot, turning a rehearsal for one man's execution into another man's silent purgatory. Henry Mancini's score, along with The White Dawn his most beautiful and atypical, is another major plus in a seriously undervalued film.
No extras on Paramount's DVD - a shame, since there was a short featurette about the making of the film, but this doesn't even include the trailer - but a decent 2.35:1 widescreen transfer.
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